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[SliceSabre]

Looking at the shows and the lists I can fully understand why guys are downrating these. I mean I don't expect your average guy to rate Jane by Design or The Lizzie Bennet Diaries very highly.

It is hard to say it is sabotage when there isn't any proof of that in the data presented.

 

[Eumi]

5.8. Vicious sabotage.

That being said, there is an interesting question here on how male-centric media can be considered 'normal', so stuff that doesn't follow that would agree with men less. Men don't have to get used to the idea that media isn't made for them, so they probably will like it less. But then is them not liking something invalidated because it comes from a cultural place rather than some kind of objective place?

Sex and the City raises some deep questions.

 

[mephel]

so let me get this straight
am i not allowed to not like the show not aimed at me? what the hell

also **** scores, there is a reason why most review sites that i like don't give a number at the end

 

[kingocfs]

That's because girls are yucky. Duh.

 

[excelsiorlef]

Alot of focused female media is of questionable quality, alot I consider bad I don't mean that simply because it doesn't fit my tastes I mean from a writing, directing, editing, ect, tends to be of average quality. Its only now were starting to get decent female focused media such as SPY a really great action film that has the quality to make it a universal movie for both genders to enjoy.

That being said yeah I defiantly think there is sadly a loud minority of men that are trying to ruin any media that is aimed at women.

Because yes if it's for women it's likelt objectively of less quality.

so let me get this straight
am i not allowed to not like the show not aimed at me? what the hell

also **** scores, there is a reason why most review sites that i like don't give a number at the end

So is this going to be another thread where people start taking observations of macro socio-political trends personally?

It is not about you specfically. No one is saying you're not allowed to dislike something. Come on.

 

[Snowman Prophet of Doom]

So, I mean, let's put it the other way.

Let's assume that you're right and that it's totally reasonable to just rate stuff you experience, even if you don't like it because you're not the target audience.

This article is still an example of sexism in that women are clearly trained NOT to do that thing, but to hide their opinions of those things.

The particular framing or which side you think is "correct" is irrelevant. The point is that men are trained to behave in a particular way involving expressing their opinions more, and women are trained to behave in a particular way involving concealing their opinions, in the same situation.

Well, that's assuming that the difference is primarily or entirely the result of cultural conditioning, and not a minor aggregate psychological difference in males' and females' expressive behaviors magnified by humans' natural inclination toward sex-/gender-based differentiation.

 

[hodgy100]

Men are conditioned to not like thngs that aren't masculine from birth. So its no surprise that men rate something that is feminine lower than women. A classic example of toxic masculinity

I dont like the skewing in the article though. Its skewed to make it look like its been rated down because its a thing for women. Perhaps men just dont like sex in the city? yes that is probably due to cultural conditioning, but fact remains that they don't like it as much as women.

 

[Joelstinton14]

You only have to look at reactions to the Hunger Games, Twilight etc too see this in action. Just have a look at the IMDB message boards and some of the accusations and abuse that male posters make - often digs at one sexuality etc.

Unfortunately there are a few people who feel threatened or dismiss franchises not aimed at them. I guess they perceive that franchises can only exist for them and no one else. It does get amusing when references of originality and plagiarism come up to certain franchises whilst holding up Star Wars as a bastion of everything that is right within the cinematic world.

At the end of the day though, i don't think the mass down voting really matters. Films like Twilight (thought the first one was decent, only seen new moon which i thought was a bit pants) and Hunger Games (throughly enjoy these films, it more than just a battle Royale influence, i particularly like MJP1 and it themes of propaganda) success have been astonishing and has opened the doors up to more female led films. The wrath of some people ain't going to affect that.

 

[True Savior]

I think it's more of an issue of over-valuating trashy shows (entourage for instance) that are aimed to that specific audience vs downvoting the others ones. It's the lack of discern. It's not so much that something is not "great", it's the other stuff that is also "not-great".

Gaf is a great place where the same exact thing happens. Just look at all those superhero huge threads, analyses, bizarre positive evaluations, only then to mock stuff that is clearly on the other spectrum audience-wise, either juvenile/teen utopias, family comedies, etc. It's all fundamentally the same type of product, that aims for the lowest common denominator. It's lowbrow entertainment (i dont write this in a condescending way). It's not good filmmaking. But the genre makes people shift their barometer. In an extreme way. Trash -> Best of the year. That's the internet and their relationship with movies.

 

[Langdon Alger]

You only have to look at reactions to the Hunger Games, Twilight etc too see this in action. Just have a look at the IMDB message boards and some of the accusations and abuse that male posters make - often digs at one sexuality etc.

Unfortunately there are a few people who feel threatened or dismiss franchises not aimed at them. I guess they perceive that franchises can only exist for them and no one else. It does get amusing when references of originality and plagiarism come up to certain franchises whilst holding up Star Wars as a bastion of everything that is right within the cinematic world.

At the end of the day though, i don't think the mass down voting really matters. Films like Twilight (thought the first one was decent, only seen new moon which i thought was a bit pants) and Hunger Games (throughly enjoy these films, it more than just a battle Royale influence, i particularly like MJP1 and it themes of propaganda) success have been astonishing and has opened the doors up to more female led films. The wrath of some people ain't going to affect that.

Twilight and Hunger Games are your examples of good movies with female leads, instead of movies like Winter's Bone or Blue Jasmine or even The Devil Wears Prada?

 

[Langdon Alger]

So what about Desperate Housewives which is sitting at 7.4? Or Gilmore Girls sitting at 8.0? Or Orange is the new black? 8.4. See how easy it is to cherry pick examples and make a point?

But I guess people are right, men are sabotaging shows because FiveThirtyEight said so?

I don't think he was cherry picking. If I understood correctly, he takes the average of a huge number of TV shows.

 

[John Kowalski]

guys no one is saying men are sabotaging the shows they are saying men are sabotaging the online reviews of said shows

at least pretend not to get upset so quickly

 

[Deft Beck]

Of course, they're not going to like it. But that doesn't mean that it's being taken away from its primary audience. Go and enjoy the show, and ignore the trolls. It's not for them.

 

[michaelius]

Sabotaging? There's high chance they are giving honest rating from their POV since it just isn't interesting for them.
If anything the scoring system can be blamed since it doesn't separate global vote from designated audience.

 

[mephel]

It is not about you specfically. No one is saying you're not allowed to dislike something. Come on.

What i meant is, I just don't see why does it matter at all. People like stuff. People dislike stuff. Some people are more interested in rating stuff. In this case, more men on average rate stuff on the internet.
I also think it's more likely for a guy to see couple of episodes of Gilmore girls than it is for a girl to see couple of episodes of Battlestar Galactica (just from my experience)

I friggin love Ally McBeal, i think it's genuinely funny, I hate Twilight and if I cared about rating these on websites, their numbers would reflect that

there is no sabotage, no patriarchy, just clickbait

guys no one is saying men are sabotaging the shows they are saying men are sabotaging the online reviews of said shows

how are they sabotaging the reviews, they are giving their honest opinion, how is that sabotage

 

[jmood88]

so let me get this straight
am i not allowed to not like the show not aimed at me? what the hell

also **** scores, there is a reason why most review sites that i like don't give a number at the end

It's almost like you went out of your way to miss the point.

 

[AlphaDump]

people love hiding on the internet. link your online accounts to your resume and it'd be a different ballgame. It's just a bunch of insecure shitheads.

 

[DedValve]

Sall good, but it's definitely across the board. Lots of 'I can't relate' to general minority sitcoms as well that are in syndication. Just closed minded fools.

I despise that example so much.

Like I can't "relate" to being straight that doesn't bother me from 99.99% of all media out there.

It feels like the case of "If it isn't for me then its bad" rather than "if it isn't for me than its just not for me". Maybe not exactly sabotaging shows but leads to some interesting insight in how the pandered majority feels towards things that doesn't cater to them.

people love hiding on the internet. link your online accounts to your resume and it'd be a different ballgame. It's just a bunch of insecure shitheads.

The anyonymity theory was disproven long ago by facebook, twitter and youtube.

 

[CyclopsRock]

Sabotaging? There's high chance they are giving honest rating from their POV since it just isn't interesting for them.
If anything the scoring system can be blamed since it doesn't separate global vote from designated audience.

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking. Sabotage implies some intent to deliberately lower the score through inauthentic means. This just sounds like the shakeout of averages.

 

[AlphaDump]

The anyonymity theory was disproven long ago by facebook, twitter and youtube.

true, but linking to your resume as part of the clearence or background check would make it interesting. some kind of tangible accountability.

it isnt a catch all solution, but i imagine a large part of the perpetuation is the fact that people arent accountable.

 

[CyclopsRock]

It feels like the case of "If it isn't for me then its bad" rather than "if it isn't for me than its just not for me". Maybe not exactly sabotaging shows but leads to some interesting insight in how the pandered majority feels towards things that doesn't cater to them.

What do you think online ratings given by users should represent, then?

 

[John Kowalski]

how are they sabotaging the reviews, they are giving their honest opinion, how is that sabotage

because reviews are purpose driven, they're supposed to figure out what the show does and how well it does it, which means that you shouldn't measure a show against standards it does set itself to reach in the first place

and as it's being suggested men has a bias against women things to they are ill equipped to properly judge those shows in the first place

 

[SliceSabre]

true, but linking to your resume as part of the clearence or background check would make it interesting. some kind of tangible accountability.

it isnt a catch all solution, but i imagine a large part of the perpetuation is the fact that people arent accountable.

"So you rated Bridesmaids a mere 5.5 but Ghost Hunters an 8.7. Care to explain this?"

"You wrote a long essay about why Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants was an "insult to cinema" but gave much praise and adoration to "Captain America: Civil War"...care to explain why?"

Seriously?

 

[thefro]

Definitely overblown, looking at the chart it's only three shows where the difference is over two points (with two of those shows being reality shows), and only six shows with a difference of over 1.5 points.

I looked at the ratings of some movies I'd stereotype as being "girl movies" like Pitch Perfect, Sleepless in Seattle, even Magic Mike have a much lower spread between male & female ratings than you'd expect.

Here's Bridesmaids, for instance

I'm sure there's some idiots rating stuff with 1s but it doesn't seem to impact the ratings too much. You'd expect there to be a spread in the ratings since some movies are targeting certain demographics over others.

Also calling AVGN a "misogynistic webshow" since James did a video out of character saying he wasn't going to see Ghostbusters in theaters since it looked bad is pretty much crap. The only thing he even mentioned in the video about gender was that people were calling it the "Female Ghostbusters" since there was nothing else to distinguish it from the original.

 

[Dice//]

Alot of focused female media is of questionable quality, alot I consider bad I don't mean that simply because it doesn't fit my tastes I mean from a writing, directing, editing, ect, tends to be of average quality.

C'mon. I forgot the great deal of love and "quality writing, directing, editing, etc" that goes into all 10 Die Hard movies.

You wrote something really silly here, I'll have you know.

 

[tkscz]

because reviews are purpose driven, they're supposed to figure out what the show does and how well it does it, which means that you shouldn't measure a show against standards it does set itself to reach in the first place

and as it's being suggested men has a bias against women things to they are ill equipped to properly judge those shows in the first place

So should they just not watch the shows or should their be a gender guard keeping men/women from judging shows that aren't for their gender?

The men who gave their opinions gave the show a chance and it didn't click with them and when asked their opinion, they gave it. That isn't Sabotage. Sabotage is never watching it and giving it a low rating because it exist and they don't want people watching it. While I don't doubt there are people doing that, it's harsh to say that every guy who rated the shows didn't give it a chance.

I honestly don't believe in the hole "male centric media telling us what's good and what's bad" as it takes from what the individual would like. We put it in a group as if opinions don't differ from person to person and I just don't understand that. It's like, yeah, there are some guys who gave negative reviews of sex in the city because it stars women, but also guys who honestly couldn't get into it, but didn't think it was bad, or guys who fairly critiqued it based on it's merits and the merits just weren't that good to them. That's just how opinions work. Just because a group of people felt a way, doesn't mean it's because they were conditioned to.

 

[itsgreen]

IMDB tv show rating are bullshit, no matter what show you look.

 

[Riddick]

Is 538 becoming a clickbait site?

It's funny how this came out a day after Nate Silver admitted he was acting like a pundit. His whole site is heading that way.

 

[lenovox1]

It's funny how this came out a day after Nate Silver admitted he was acting like a pundit. His whole site is heading that way.

This isn't punditry or click-bait. It's just an entertainment article. A fluff piece. An interesting take on some data. Nothing nefarious.

 

[Krauser Kat]

IMDB should probably write an algorithm to weight reviews by different age groups depending on how far away they are from the shows target demographic.

When 1/1 men vote on Sex in the City and bring its avg down compared or only 1/10 women voting for Entourage. thats kind of fucked up to consider either is showing an accurate score to the quality of the show.

 

[platocplx]

It's a small issue, but it's an insightful example of one aspect of the patriarchy -- the assumption by men that everything is designed for their consumption, so if they don't like something, it must just be bad.

This is true. If men dont like it then its totally bad, it actually can trickle down to just about anything that is remotely diverse because the "standard" doesnt like it then its supposed to be bad instead of really saying hey.. maybe this isnt for me and thats cool.

 

[shintoki]

I'm starting to suspect that guys are simply more critical in general, found some interesting info on this IMDB study from 2014:

https://stephenfollows.com/do-film-critics-and-audiences-agree/

Female audience members tend to give films higher scores then male audiences
Older audience members give films much lower ratings than younger audiences
Rotten Tomatoes seems to have a higher proportion of women voting than IMDb’s 1 in 5 ratio of women to men.
IMDb seems to be staffed by men aged between 18 to 29 who dislike Black Comedies and love the 1995 classic ‘Showgirls’.

Rotten Tomatoes appears to be better than IMDb at representing women

Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes does not offer a split by gender. However, by comparing the gender breakdown on IMDb votes we can speculate that they have a more equal gender split than IMDb’s figure of 80% of votes coming from men. My deduction is due mostly to there being many female-skewed films in the Rotten Tomatoes audience top 20, including Life Is Beautiful, The Pianist and Amelie (see earlier in this article for female Top 10 films).

I see no problem with this and I think it proves the superiority of the male race. Carry on IDBM. I withdraw any of my unfounded accusations of sexism and taste.

 

[Ponn]

Maybe it would help since we are on a gaming forum to put it into gaming terms. If a site like IGN has one of their writers review FFXV who hates JRPG's and usually only reviews FPS or sports games and they rate the game really bad is that fair? How do fans on gaming side react and what do they say? IF you don't like country music or don't like rap music do you listen to new albums from those genres anyways and then run to iTunes or amazon and submit scathing reviews for them?

I'm just not understanding why this concept is so hard for some to accept or translate down to a primal male vs. female scenario. It really does scream entitlement and there are great examples in this thread and the Ghostbusters thread of this ingrained thinking on display.

 

[Finaika]

Goddamnit!

 

[Imm0rt4l]

I'm really not surprised by this. It might not seem like that big a deal, but I think this sort of practice has far reaching consequences.

So is this going to be another thread where people start taking observations of macro socio-political trends personally?

Sure seems that way.

 

[shoreu]

Arrow seems to be doing pretty fine though. Season 3 is probably the highest rated of all the seasons, and that's when it became Felicity.

Man this is so sad and true

 

[Vagabundo]

Sabotage is definitely a jump. Probably for clicks.

Still personally I've watched all the episodes to Sex and the City with my wife and I think the writing and acting in that was excellent.

Twilight was terrible, rubbish, but I love shows/films that I know are rubbish, I can see why might be popular.

 

[Bobby Roberts]

Now, I'm not employed by 538 here, but going through the thread, I noticed an interesting trend on the part of some posters that, when presented with the OP, seemed to tilt strongly towards trying to two different narratives as a means of dismissal or shutting down potential conversation.

1) This is clickbait:

Is 538 becoming a clickbait site?

It seems like it has, yes.

It's funny how this came out a day after Nate Silver admitted he was acting like a pundit. His whole site is heading that way.

Agreed with this. "Sabotage" is pretty clickbaity.

Sabotage is definitely a jump. Probably for clicks.

Note the attempt here to dismiss the premise of 538's post by suggesting the entire thing was done and presented dishonestly and disingenuously as a means to secure clicks above all else.

This leads to #2), best summed up via Excelsior's post:

So is this going to be another thread where people start taking observations of macro socio-political trends personally?

In which the narrative is subtly steered towards the idea that any solution to this easily observable problem will lead to the unfair suppression of men's freedom of expression.

Is Two Broke Girls aimed at women? Because that show is just goddamn awful. Am I wrong if I go and rate it poorly because I'm not the demographic they are targeting? Should only people in the targeted demographic be able to rate something?

If something is not designed for me and I try it out anyway and dont like it, what am I supposed to do? Forget about it? Not rate it at all? Rate it to reflect my viewpoint?

Of course not. It's terrible that men are expressing their opinions of media they don't like. Super gross.

Look, maybe you just read the headline, but there's no evidence that this is a bunch of MRAs violently 1-starring chick flicks. It looks more like men giving honest but unfavorable views to media they don't like. What exactly is your problem with that?

Maybe they didn't like it? Are we saying we need segregated scoring does that now all dictate only women would watch and like Sex in the City.

so let me get this straight
am i not allowed to not like the show not aimed at me? what the hell

So what about Desperate Housewives which is sitting at 7.4? Or Gilmore Girls sitting at 8.0? Or Orange is the new black? 8.4. See how easy it is to cherry pick examples and make a point?

But I guess people are right, men are sabotaging shows because FiveThirtyEight said so?

So should they just not watch the shows or should their be a gender guard keeping men/women from judging shows that aren't for their gender?

This is essentially the same sort of activity that kept derailing the Ghostbusters thread until eventually discussion was ultimately closed down completely: The wrestling of the narrative into a position wherein not only the validity of the premise is dismissed outright, but it turns out the real unfairly maligned party are the men being put upon by society's shifting, confusing expectations of them lest they be tagged with a label they don't want to wear.

For whatever reason, a lot of us can't simply look at the observable phenomenon in front of us and come to the conclusion that is the most obvious: A lot of us behave badly, and without much forethought.

You don't have to deny such things are happening in order to "clear your name" or whatever.

 

[mephel]

For whatever reason, a lot of us can't simply look at the observable phenomenon in front of us and come to the conclusion that is the most obvious: A lot of us behave badly, and without much forethought.

a lot of who? men? women? people in general?

i also simply cannot agree that rating something you don't like with bad score is "behaving badly"

maybe i'm just misunderstanding all this, but this really does not make sense to me at all

 

[PseudoKirby]

you can get a female audience without having to pander or seem overly skewed to one demographic


just look at firefly

 

[tkscz]

This is essentially the same sort of activity that kept derailing the Ghostbusters thread until eventually discussion was ultimately closed down completely: The wrestling of the narrative into a position wherein not only the validity of the premise is dismissed outright, but it turns out the real unfairly maligned party are the men being put upon by society's shifting, confusing expectations of them lest they be tagged with a label they don't want to wear.

For whatever reason, a lot of us can't simply look at the observable phenomenon in front of us and come to the conclusion that is the most obvious: A lot of us behave badly, and without much forethought.

You don't have to deny such things are happening in order to "clear your name" or whatever.

What? I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say here. Clear names? behave badly? Opinions are bad behavior now?

 

[Bobby Roberts]

i also simply cannot agree that rating something you don't like with bad score is "behaving badly"

maybe i'm just misunderstanding all this, but this really does not make sense to me at all

You're probably misunderstanding this to a degree, especially since it appears you're coming at this from the standpoint "What did I do? I didn't do anything wrong! Why are you saying I did something wrong?"

You rating a thing on imdb isn't wrong. You rating a thing you didn't like on imdb isn't wrong. You having valid, content-based reasons for why you rated the thing you didn't like isn't wrong.

What's wrong is suggesting the premise of the article is somehow faulty, or bullshit, or unfair to you and you specifically because you don't like the implication that other men are being thoughtlessly malicious to a minor degree.

The number of people, you included, who responded to this article/thread with the equivalent of throwing up your hands and saying "I can't win! What am I supposed to do? Why can't I get a break?" is understandable, but serves the opposite purpose of what you're intending to do: You're trying to suggest you shouldn't be unfairly judged as being an unfair judger when nobody's actually suggesting you specifically unfairly judge things.

It's like being on an elevator and someone rips a pungent fart, right? And everyone on the elevator is like "Ugh this is rancid" and someone goes "Coulda tried a little harder to hold that in for a few more seconds" And then three other guys, none of which who actually farted, jump up like "Why are you unfairly judging a guy for ripping ass, huh? Maybe he was trying to hold it. You don't know. What are we supposed to give ourselves an embolism, pop a blood vessel just because there are some people in this elevator who can't handle a couple seconds of toot? It's not like we don't all do it. Maybe the real answer here is that you guys should just let rip when you feel like it instead of asking us all to hold it in for you"

There is absolutely something behind the desire to take this article, highlighting a very obvious and oservable phenomenon, and trying to steer the narrative away from what it seems to suggest and make it about a different form of unacceptable behavior, one that's easier to buy into for you because it allows you to indulge in feeling aggrieved and put-upon in the way you unfairly feel you're cast as doing to others - even as nobody's actually casting you, specifically, as having done it.

It's a question of mislaid self-identification, basically.

 

[dramatis]

you can get a female audience without having to pander or seem overly skewed to one demographic

Sure. But that's not the question here.

The question is: why are a bunch of men rolling over to rate female-targeted shows poorly? Women don't do the same to male-targeted shows.

 

[Ivan 3414]

So what about Desperate Housewives which is sitting at 7.4? Or Gilmore Girls sitting at 8.0? Or Orange is the new black? 8.4. See how easy it is to cherry pick examples and make a point?

But I guess people are right, men are sabotaging shows because FiveThirtyEight said so?

Orange is the New Black is about women but I wouldn't say it's marketed solely to women. It appeals to both genders.

But I agree with your post

 

[Malvolio]

Surely the equestrian vote balances things out.

 

[God Dayumm]

Sabotaging? There's high chance they are giving honest rating from their POV since it just isn't interesting for them.
If anything the scoring system can be blamed since it doesn't separate global vote from designated audience.

At least when it comes to TV series it is probably sabotaging. Lets be honest, most of those shows look mediocre just from the posters, trailers and other publicity. Why would I watch them, let alone waste time writing a negative review? So, I doubt these men watched enough episodes to give an honest review, they just trolled the scores.

Now, movies require much less time time investment. Hell, I watched one of the Twilight movies even thought I knew it was trash before it happened. It's just that circumstances put me in that place. This is why movie scores are more accurate.

 

[tkscz]

You're probably misunderstanding this to a degree, especially since it appears you're coming at this from the standpoint "What did I do? I didn't do anything wrong! Why are you saying I did something wrong?"

You rating a thing on imdb isn't wrong. You rating a thing you didn't like on imdb isn't wrong. You having valid, content-based reasons for why you rated the thing you didn't like isn't wrong.

What's wrong is suggesting the premise of the article is somehow faulty, or bullshit, or unfair to you and you specifically because you don't like the implication that other men are being thoughtlessly malicious to a minor degree.

The number of people, you included, who responded to this article/thread with the equivalent of throwing up your hands and saying "I can't win? What am I supposed to do? Why can't I get a break?" is understandable, but serves the opposite purpose of what you're intending to do: You're trying to suggest you shouldn't be unfairly judged as being an unfair judger when nobody's actually suggesting you specifically unfairly judge things.

It's like being on an elevator and someone rips a pungent fart, right? And everyone on the elevator is like "Ugh this is rancid" and someone goes "Coulda tried a little harder to hold that in for a few more seconds" And then three other guys, none of which who actually farted, jump up like "Why are you unfairly judging a guy for ripping ass, huh? Maybe he was trying to hold it. You don't know. What are we supposed to give ourselves an embolism, pop a blood vessel just because there are some people in this elevator who can't handle a couple seconds of toot? It's not like we don't all do it."

If this is the case, did you read all of what I said before? My post was more on the thought that this is just people making individual choices based on their own opinions, rather than a group mentality of white male centric media telling them that shows like this are bad. More of "the individual vs the societal" mentality. Quite a few people here agree that white male centric media are why these men are negatively reviewing these shows. I say it could be multiple reasons based on who they are and the circumstances around why they watched the show and how they are reviewing it.

 

[Vagabundo]

Now, I'm not employed by 538 here, but going through the thread, I noticed an interesting trend on the part of some posters that, when presented with the OP, seemed to tilt strongly towards trying to two different narratives as a means of dismissal or shutting down potential conversation.

1) This is clickbait:











Note the attempt here to dismiss the premise of 538's post by suggesting the entire thing was done and presented dishonestly and disingenuously as a means to secure clicks above all else.

This leads to #2), best summed up via Excelsior's post:



In which the narrative is subtly steered towards the idea that any solution to this easily observable problem will lead to the unfair suppression of men's freedom of expression.















This is essentially the same sort of activity that kept derailing the Ghostbusters thread until eventually discussion was ultimately closed down completely: The wrestling of the narrative into a position wherein not only the validity of the premise is dismissed outright, but it turns out the real unfairly maligned party are the men being put upon by society's shifting, confusing expectations of them lest they be tagged with a label they don't want to wear.

For whatever reason, a lot of us can't simply look at the observable phenomenon in front of us and come to the conclusion that is the most obvious: A lot of us behave badly, and without much forethought.

You don't have to deny such things are happening in order to "clear your name" or whatever.

lol wow. Show me the proof that it is sabotage and that title isn't for clicks please.

Oh please. Sabotage is just a guess by the article, if it is not for clicks then why is it used?

There is no evidence presented in the article that it sabotage - which implies intent - and not some cultural issue (which could be innate sexism who knows there isn't enough data).

The real agenda here is your own I'm afraid.

 

[Of All Trades]

You're probably misunderstanding this to a degree, especially since it appears you're coming at this from the standpoint "What did I do? I didn't do anything wrong! Why are you saying I did something wrong?"

You rating a thing on imdb isn't wrong. You rating a thing you didn't like on imdb isn't wrong. You having valid, content-based reasons for why you rated the thing you didn't like isn't wrong.

What's wrong is suggesting the premise of the article is somehow faulty, or bullshit, or unfair to you and you specifically because you don't like the implication that other men are being thoughtlessly malicious to a minor degree.

The number of people, you included, who responded to this article/thread with the equivalent of throwing up your hands and saying "I can't win! What am I supposed to do? Why can't I get a break?" is understandable, but serves the opposite purpose of what you're intending to do: You're trying to suggest you shouldn't be unfairly judged as being an unfair judger when nobody's actually suggesting you specifically unfairly judge things.

It's like being on an elevator and someone rips a pungent fart, right? And everyone on the elevator is like "Ugh this is rancid" and someone goes "Coulda tried a little harder to hold that in for a few more seconds" And then three other guys, none of which who actually farted, jump up like "Why are you unfairly judging a guy for ripping ass, huh? Maybe he was trying to hold it. You don't know. What are we supposed to give ourselves an embolism, pop a blood vessel just because there are some people in this elevator who can't handle a couple seconds of toot? It's not like we don't all do it. Maybe the real answer here is that you guys should just let rip when you feel like it instead of asking us all to hold it in for you"

There is absolutely something behind the desire to take this article, highlighting a very obvious and oservable phenomenon, and trying to steer the narrative away from what it seems to suggest and make it about a different form of unacceptable behavior, one that's easier to buy into for you because it allows you to indulge in feeling aggrieved and put-upon in the way you unfairly feel you're cast as doing to others - even as nobody's actually casting you, specifically, as having done it.

It's a question of mislaid self-identification, basically.

Maybe you could state what you think the obvious phenomenon is and engage with arguments instead of policing the thread and making it about how you are clearly the Better Person.

 

[Spyder_Monkey]

People here have just as much grasp on what clickbait means as they do on ethics in journalism.